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Why do we use the terms "left" and "right" to characterize political matters? Left and right in themselves have no political significance. Apparently there is something inside us that connects these bodily terms to politics. This book is the first to discover that "something".Political use of the terms "left" and "right" originated in the French Estates General on the 7th of May 1789, two days after its grandiose opening session, in a simple ad hoc measure for a short event that afternoon. However, this measure embodied the unforeseen emergence of the political left/right dichotomy. Its continual developments are discussed here, with examples not only from politics, but also from everyday life, anthropology, genetic engineering, a novel by Turgenev, ingenious experiments with volunteers, and much more. But above all, the dichotomy is enshrined in unconscious urges deep within us--as illustrated 2,400 years ago by Sophocles in his tragedy Antigone.

Despite to the ambiguity of the political processes, the fall of the communist system and the re-establishmentof the independence of Lithuania were closely related. Post – Communist transition in 1992–1996 has unexpectedlyreturned the former communists (Labour Democratic Party of Lithuania) to the Olympus of power. They,having controlled the Seimas (Parliament of Lithuania) and the Government, have performed the reasonable domestic and foreign policy, yet drawn – up by the program attitudes of Sàjûdis. The aims of one political party toimpose political dictate to all other political forces was not accepted by society. The complicated relations betweenruling majority and opposition have stimulated the political polarization of society as well as upgrow of the civicenmity, and so prevented social development of civic society.

Matt Yglesias and Bryan Caplan offer contrasting theories. But neither fully works.

The origins and immediate vitality of the left/right divide which emerged in French revolutionary politics from 1789 can only be understood against the background of a much older classification dynamic based on the primacy of the right hand, first described by Robert Hertz in 1909. This dynamic infused political thinking first in Versailles and since 1815 in democracies throughout the world. In the process, the classical left/right polarity acquired a new dimension: the complementary notions of 'accepting' and 'questioning' the existing social order. An essential feature of both the age-old classical polarity and the ensuing political polarity is that they are intimately bound up with local and evolving social contexts: there is no single content-based definition of left and right. As long as the majority of us are predisposed to use our right hand when acting in the world, 'left versus right' will remain the most important political antithesis in western-type democracies.

The origins and immediate vitality of the left/right divide which emerged in French revolutionary politics from 1789 can only be understood against the background of a much older classification dynamic based on the primacy of the right hand, first described by Robert Hertz in 1909. This dynamic infused political thinking first in Versailles and since 1815 in democracies throughout the world. In the process, the classical left/right polarity acquired a new dimension: the complementary notions of 'accepting' and 'questioning' the existing social order. An essential feature of both the age-old classical polarity and the ensuing political polarity is that they are intimately bound up with local and evolving social contexts: there is no single content-based definition of left and right. As long as the majority of us are predisposed to use our right hand when acting in the world, 'left versus right' will remain the most important political antithesis in western-type democracies. ; peerReviewed ; publishedVersion

This book examines key twentieth-century philosophers, theologians, and social scientists who began their careers with commitments to the political left only later to reappraise or reject those commitments due to changes in the culture, economics, and politics.

There are three purposes of this paper. The first is to see whether parliamentary speech can be used to classify Australian federal parliamentarians from the main two political groups (the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal National Party Coalition) into their respective groupings. I use machine learning and text analysis to create a classifier which is able to do this with 76% accuracy. The second aim is to use the probability scores generated by the classifier to place ALP and LNPC parliamentarians on an ideological spectrum. This rankingprocedure enables us to see who the moderates and extremes are within the ALP and the LNPC. The third purposes is to demonstrate how scoring parliamentarians according to their ideological orientation can be used to provide insight into several political phenomena. I discuss several general applications of ideological scores. I also provide specific examples of how such quantitative scores can shed light on qualitative discussions of the ideology of parliamentarians and show how such scores can be used to explain party leader selection processes.